La Petite Mort
by Nitrobot
Summary: Jack Morrison, former commander of Overwatch, now the vigilante Soldier 76. Amélie Lacroix, former member of Overwatch under Jack's command. Years on from the fall, he has some questions for her. [Widow76]
1. Chapter 1

It was on the clear and quiet nights that Jack often wondered why he even bothered. Maybe because he was the only one who could, or because he just had nothing better to do. It was hard keeping busy when everyone thought you were dead.

Even if Overwatch was reunited, cobbled back together from whoever was still left to fight, it had no place in the world anymore. It was outdated, irrelevant, painfully similar to himself at one time. The only difference was that he carved a new niche for himself, a new name under a new creed. He didn't stick where he didn't belong, and he didn't fool himself into thinking he could fight a war alone.

He almost pitied the new Overwatch, doomed against the Omnic resurge… but that wasn't what he was here for. He was looking for just one person. She went by Widowmaker, but her name was Amélie Lacroix. One of Overwatch's very first traitors.

Under the shade of Tokyo twilight, she proved difficult to find. There was no other Talon activity nearby to track her with, and Jack's visor couldn't pick out anything from the shadows of the streets below other than a bored security detail milling outside the warehouse. If the rooftops weren't similarly guarded she might have already set up shop on one of them. Jack himself had claimed the highest point before she could, hauling his old bones up a metal tower to scan the area.

If she was here, she was in hiding… for now. All Jack could do was grit his teeth and wait for her to come out. In better, more naive days scouting would have been a job for the ones who couldn't shoot straight yet, the only job they _could_ do without fucking up somehow. It was a humiliating demotion from commander, but one he had to accept; a one man army meant having to do everything, after all. He was scout, medic and commander all weighed on one body. And a soldier, most of all.

An hour, two hours, three, however many passed with barely a twitch in Jack's coiled muscles or the fingers wrapped around his pulse rifle. He could see red even when he blinked, yet all that changed was subtle flicker of shadows. So much focus was trained through his visor that he neglected his other senses, didn't hear the faint crunch of heels on gravel below him or the click of a bullet sliding into a barrel. He might have missed her entirely if not for her own pride leaking out in a low chuckle, yanking his vision down to the rooftop. The metal of her rifle was warmer than her whole body, the thermal cameras in her helmet assaulting his visor with bright glares. However long she'd been camped out below him for, she hadn't noticed him hanging above her yet. And she wouldn't with her eyes stapled to her sniper scope, poised like a viper waiting to strike. Or, more fittingly, like a spider.

Jack shifted his frozen weight, inching towards the railing of his sentry spot. He could shoot her right now, but she'd take all her secrets to hell with her. But if he left his gun, if he landed just right on top of her, he'd at least knock her away from the rifle. "Right then, come to Daddy…"

The metal platform groaned as he vaulted off the tower, a stubborn grumble that got Amélie's attention and had her rolling aside just before he landed where she'd been lying a second before. Her rifle was loaded but abandoned and left askew, aimed at a man leaving the warehouse in a blurr as Jack ducked to avoid a vicious heeled kick.

"You've gotten quite the makeover, Amélie!" He grunted from exertion, but the mask carried his voice over in a rough echo as he weaved to avoid her attacks. They paused only for a second, long enough for him to retreat behind the tower and gather his strength. Two goals came immediately to him; prevent the assassination, and capture her alive. Though the second one was more or less optional, as long as he got what he needed from her.

"And how do you know my name?" she asked, almost shocking him with how much her voice had changed. The accent was still there, effortlessly elegant like the rest of the Amélie he remembered… but with a cold venom seeping through it. Even under his heavy jacket he couldn't stop a shiver, one he only barely managed to keep out of his reply.

"I've gotten wise in my old age." His visor offered a rough outline of her fighting style, enough for him to counter her at least as he rolled out of his cover.

"Not wise enough to hide from thermals…" She sounded much closer now, right behind him in fact as he soon discovered with a heavy set of gauntlets crashing down on his head. His covered chin smacked against the rooftop and his visor jolted, teeth clattering in his ringing skull as she leapt over him and swiped her rifle up from its stand.

"But certainly old enough to be causing Talon a lot of bother, Soixante-Seize," she hissed over her shoulder, before taking off across a long line of flat roofs. If his head wasn't already daze, Jack would have had to take a second to recover from the sight of her outfit… not something one would usually wear for killing people. Certainly not something Amélie would wear, even with her bleached icy skin. What had they done to her… was this the Amélie that always existed?

But that wasn't important; her window of opportunity was closing now with every second, and she had to reposition to keep it open. That's what he surmised from her frantic pace, how she kept glancing across at her distant target and the mass of bodyguards following him. He shared some of the feeling, only having seconds to decide if he had time to fetch his gun and still be able to catch up to her. Of course he didn't have time, because whoever was up there in the stars really didn't like him, so he was left with nothing but a biotic field and his own fists as he pelted after her.

At least she, or Talon, knew who he was now. Being a nuisance was finally getting him some credit.

"So what brings you all the way over here? Paris not so pretty this time of year?" he called to her as she slammed the rooftop guards ahead down with a grappling hook, saving them both the trouble of avoiding them. His visor blinked at the edge of his vision, demanding his attention as his boots pounded the concrete, and when he finally fiddled with it he suddenly heard Amélie's voice like a clear death whistle in his ears, taunting him from afar.

"I'm sure you already know of the Shimada clan's obligations to Talon... they failed to deliver." He did know, having taken care of the Shimada's less legal operations himself, so it wasn't that news that surprised him enough to lose track of her. Somehow her own setup could link into his own… which meant it was stolen Overwatch technology. He might have been angered if he wasn't just as guilty of thievery, or moreso if he wasn't trying to find out where she'd disappeared to. The rooftops ended just before he made himself stop with a chasm between the next track of them, and with nothing but a trail of downed guards behind him. In losing his focus for just a few seconds, he lost her for good.

"And you're here to send a message?" he grunted, short growls replacing gasps for air. However far away she was, he could still hear her like he was right next to him, like old and better times.

"Not a message. Just a bullet through someone's head… a shame that it has to be yours now."

There was a whistle of wind around her as she spoke, revealing she was high up… in the same distant vantage spot on the tower with her rifle on the railing, something his visor only showed him when the red sight from her scope aimed right in the center of it.

"Bonne nuit, mon cher." That almost tender whisper would have been the last thing he heard… if not for luck. The bullet fell just short of his forehead, splitting and cracking on the carbon of his mask instead of his skin. His mouth filled with rattling pain and shrapnel, broken pieces showering from his chin as the impact knocked him hard on his back. His visor was cracked into two halves, fizzling and spitting static across his eyes. His jaw ached as his mask crumbled away and exposed his bare face to the night air, and to Amélie herself as she soon loomed over him. He couldn't try to push himself up without a stab of pain erupting from his ashen mouth, and he could do nothing as Amélie knelt, staring down like he was a poor dying animal. She certainly had the look of a triumphant predator, even with her cameras pulled away from her cold eyes flickering in his malfunctioning visor.

"I don't often miss, Soixante-Seize… you _are_ a special kind of prey, no?" She brushed aside the shattered remains of his mask with a chilling touch, pulled the broken glass away from his eyes like she was unwrapping a present-

Except she stopped very suddenly once his eyes were uncovered. Her fingers froze, as if they weren't already cold enough, her proud smile dissolved into something… confused. She blinked, hesitant hints of warmth trying to creep across her pupils as she pulled away from him with her face just a hint paler now. She looked like she'd seen a ghost, because she had.

"...Jack?" she whispered. The pain in his face was fading, but even if every move was agony he still would have sat up instantly, every muscle tense with suspicion.

"You… recognise me?" He hadn't accounted for this, hadn't thought she'd see his face or even remember him if she did. But the shock, the stricken surge of sorrow across her face, no one could fake that.

"I… you're supposed to be... " One of her hands fluttered across her chest, half over revealed skin and cupping her heart. Her eyes started to bulge, her mouth gasping as she started to choke on thin air. Jack caught her just before she collapsed on the concrete.

"Amélie!" He held her loosely as she seized, trying to splutter as she kept the hand firm over her heart, as if it was trying to leap out her chest. When Jack placed his own hand over it, he could hear it thumping even through her trembling palm. "Talk to me, Amélie! What's wrong, what's happening!?" Never mind that she'd just tried to kill him, he couldn't let her die yet. Her heart was running away under her skin, flooding it with a new flush of colour. The seizure stopped, but she was still shaking in his arms. Her eyes were clamped closed, but he could see tears on her lashes.

"Jack… I'm… it's… s-so cold…" Amélie could only whisper through chattering teeth, nothing like the acidic edge she used to have in her quiet whimper. Her skin was a pale grey now, dappled with sweat that soaked through her suit. This wasn't Talon's greatest weapon. This was the Amélie he once knew, her shadow.

"Here. Wear this." Jack kept a firm embrace around her as he pulled his jacket off, draping it around her shoulders. She sighed in the new warmth, wrapping it tightly around her as she curled closer to him. Under his hand her heart still thudded deep in her chest, but not as frantic as before. He used another hand to wipe her forehead, pushing damp strands of hair from her face.

"Now I'm gonna get you somewhere safe," he said quietly. "And you're gonna tell me everything I've missed being dead. Okay?"

"...Okay." She only had strength to nod once, shifting in his arms so he could carry her. Both of their rifles were left to the wind.


	2. Chapter 2

"...I'm sorry about Gérard." It was all Jack could say, now knowing the truth about his demise. Everyone knew Amélie had killed him, converted to a Talon agent over just a few weeks of capture. Jack had rescued her himself… saw the relief in her eyes at being brought home to her husband. By the time he accepted that the same woman killed Gérard in cold blood, his name was just one on a long list of casualties.

And now that same woman sat across from him in the only chair, so small under the heavy cloth of his jacket, still cradling her heart. It was warmer in the safehouse, but she still shivered.

"I'm sorry, too," she whispered. Her hair blended into the midnight gloom, her pale skin making her look as ghost-like as he felt leaning against the wall opposite her. Whatever had drained her colour and kindness was gone, at least for now. That was one thing to feel happy about, at least.

"And Talon… they made you like this?" Jack asked, watching her tilt her tired head in a nod.

"After Gérard… they took me back. Slowed my pulse to barely a twitch of my heartstrings. All I felt was ice… a cold kind of helplessness until now." She forced her head up, bright eyes warily meeting his own. "They made me solely to kill. What else was I to do?"

"I'm not here to pass judgement," he said softly. "I just want to know the truth."

She huffed, nostrils flaring as she pulled the jacket tighter around her. "I'd like to know that as well…" That razor edge of Widowmaker threatened to return in her sudden bitter tone, reminding Jack that even now she wasn't the same woman he always admired.

"You've been alive this whole time. How?"

Either anger or confusion made it sound like an accusation; of all the people to survive the fall, why him? Whichever one had taken hold of her, it was a desperate brand.

"...I'm a hard man to kill. I'm sure you figured that out." He shrugged his own excuse off, knowing how flimsy it was. But he just didn't want her to keep stabbing glares into him.

Her eyes softened, but her suspicion didn't budge. "Who else knows?"

"No one. And I plan on keeping it that way."

Amélie let her guard back down in the blink of an eye, confusion helping to soften her features. "Why?"

Instead of answering Jack pushed himself off the wall, moved to the window on the other side of the room. The view was filtered flickering neon, dirty pavements and dirtier air, a street popular enough even this early that he couldn't fall asleep or be tracked to it. Luxury was a long gone myth for him nowadays.

"...Cause this isn't the kind of world Jack Morrison would last long in," he finally said, the scar on his forehead pressed against the cold glass. "He's as dead as Overwatch is."

Amélie took her own time to speak, low like she was humming something half-remembered. "You don't mean that."

He watched his reflection smirk sadly just before turning his head to face her. "Think I just covered my face cause I thought it was ugly?"

Though it made Amélie smile, like he'd hoped, it also made her mouth hang open like she was turning over a response in there. And he knew the one that eventually came out wasn't the one she'd been contemplating. "Well, Overwatch seems to be getting back on its feet without you."

Now it was Jack's turn to be amused, snorting as he turned back to the window. "Yeah, a horde of kids who can barely aim straight running out to get themselves killed. Pardon me if I don't envy them."

"So you just go all over the world, hunting down thugs and gangs out of the kindness of your heart?" she asked, with enough sarcasm to turn him sour.

"It's sure as hell kinder than yours." He'd muttered it against the glass, glaring out at the bitter evening, but the blurry reflection of her sudden anguish was more than enough to make him regret even thinking it.

"I… I didn't mean that. I'm sorry. It's…" He grated a sigh between his teeth as he seated himself on the table in front of her, in perfect range for any slaps he may have deserved. "It's been a long time since I've seen a familiar face. Haven't had much practice in being friendly…"

Tired fingers combed backwards through his thin hair, scratching at the scar etched deep in his frail skin. By contrast Amélie's were so gentle he flinched when they brushed against his hand. She was still so cold… like an iceberg sitting alone in a dark ocean, but that wasn't why Jack felt his nerves tingle as she held his hand.

"...I think it suits you nowadays," she said, latching onto his heavy eyes with her own. "I believe there is a saying in English… 'you have the face of shit'?"

Jack's laughter sounded a lot older than it should have, like it had gotten trapped in his throat long ago and was left aging there until now. "I think you mean, 'you look like shit'."

"That too," she added, leaving him wondering how the hell he lasted this long on his own, how he could have thought she'd willingly betray Overwatch.

"I've missed you, Amélie," he sighed, a hundred old smiles plaguing his once barren face.

"...I've missed everything, Jack," she muttered, pressing her face against her knees as she pulled them up to her chest. "Why did you come to find me tonight?"

Back to business, just like that. She used to like basking in those rare moments of genuine joy, but now it was as if she was scared of them. "I wanted answers," he said. "Someone… some _thing_ took down Overwatch from the inside. There's plenty of suspects, and you were second on the list."

"Should I ask who was first?"

"I think you know who." Jack didn't know if he wanted Gabriel already dead, or still kicking so he could take him out himself. He practically confessed it all to him... Blackwatch was going to split entirely from Overwatch like some goddamn mutiny. Remembering that day, the hatred that burst in the air and turned the man he once called a friend into a monster, that killed so many... so many except himself. His gloves cut into his hands from how tightly he clenched them.

"I had friends in Overwatch," he said, only managing to relax his fingers slightly while his teeth continued to grit themselves. "And because of him, or whoever orchestrated it, I lost them all overnight. Not exactly the same as losing someone you love enough to marry, but…" He shrugged, not quite knowing how to empathise with her. Did the amount of lives lost matter more than whose were lost? He couldn't tell by looking at her half-hidden face, still so pale and thin in the moonlight, guilt drenching her eyes for some reason.

"Jack…" Her sigh sounded painful, rattling out from a hollow chest. "Gérard was a beautiful husband, a better man than I could ask for, but… he wasn't the man I loved. He was just someone my parents approved of."

It wasn't a confession he'd ever have been expecting. Gérard had been his most loyal agent, one of those rare ones he could trust without a second thought. And he'd loved Amélie so much... their marriage was the most stable thing in all of Overwatch. "You married him just to make them happy?"

From how hesitant she was to nod, it must have only been half true. She cared about him enough to stay with the lie, up until Talon forced her to confront it. "And because… I knew I could never be with my love," she added, so slowly and quietly that Jack wondered if he was supposed to have heard it.

"Do I know him?" he asked.

"Very well... why else would my heart have gone so fast in front of him?" She watched his eyes widen, jaw falling slack from the burst of shock in his brain. Yet another thing he could have never been expecting... so why did he feel so annoyed for not being prepared for it?

"...Oh… all this time?" He struggled not to choke on the question, when her smile was already sad enough on her frozen lips.

"This wasn't exactly how I imagined you finding out," she admitted, sinking deeper into his jacket as if she could hide from her confessions. Jack was just trying to stop himself blinking so much.

"And... you still feel that way?"

"More than ever before." She couldn't have been lying or tricking him... but it still didn't make any sense. Was she that good at hiding it, or was he just that oblivious? No wonder he never detected the terrorists in Overwatch until it was too late... he couldn't even tell when someone had a crush on him. Couldn't even _i_ _magine_ anyone wanting to share their bed with a cranky old man left battered by the years. Nostalgia had surely blinded her, a need for the familiar after so long among strangers. He would have surely felt the same.

"I'm just an old soldier now, Amélie," he said, sighing with each word as he held a hand to his bowed forehead. "You know you could do a lot better. You need someone who can keep up with you."

Before he could rise to his feet his other hand was seized, so gentle even through his glove. "Or maybe I need someone to slow down for," she suggested, pulling herself out of her cocoon and tugging him closer to her. "You don't have to feel the same way. I wouldn't expect you to. Just… don't leave me alone tonight, Jack. Please…" Amélie placed his hand back over her heart, the dull thuds still strong enough to echo against her ribs, concrete proof that she loved him even if he still couldn't understand why. She'd always been so strong on her own, even working in her husband's shadow, as attentive as Angela with infinite patience. She only worked behind the scenes, making sure the organisation survived even in its darkest days, a hero outside the battlefield.

Knowing all that, Jack couldn't stop looking at her lips, the pleading pout that could have stopped an army at her feet and the hint of hope trapped in her eyes. He didn't know if he could share a love that had been hidden so long... but what was the harm in trying it? "...Maybe I _do_ feel the same way." His hand migrated from her chest to her face, fingers wrapping loosely around her chin to pull her mouth to his. They were both hesitant, only grazing their lips together until Amélie decided she wanted to feel more of the scar slashed across his. Warmth bloomed under his hand as he kissed back, like he was flooding her with it, and he offered no resistance when he was pulled onto the chair with her. How long had it been since he felt someone else's heat, her body so supple against his when he was so used to the struggle of killing. He almost worried he'd hurt her... until he remembered that she'd tried to shoot his face off. She wasn't as fragile as he might have once thought, which only made him more eager to give her what she wanted.

"It's been a while, so… don't tease me," he asked, already panting along her neck as he pulled his zipper down. She'd managed to keep the jacket on while pulling the rest of her suit down, breasts slightly exposed yet all the more arousing when clad in his colours.

"Oh, too old to get it up?" she quipped, actually giggling like a schoolgirl when he scowled at the mere suggestion. If he wasn't such a gentleman he might have just flipped her over then, or at least put something over her mouth

"Do you want me to fuck you or not?" He'd managed to pull his pants down by then, adding a lot more emphasis to the question by wrapping her legs around his hips to hear the moans he could already feel purring at the back of her throat.

"Please, Jack… or should I call you 'Daddy'?" Even in the gloom his blush must have been neon-bright for her to laugh so hard. Usually anyone who heard him call himself that ended up dead... but if she had heard, she'd known he was standing above her on the rooftop the whole time.

That was something to leave for the morning, when he could actually think clearly without a gorgeous woman grinding into him.

"If you wanna."

And oh, she did want to.


End file.
